The next frontier for 3D printing: drugs

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While the video above may not win an award for action movie of the year, it’s illustrating an exciting new breakthrough for the way we manufacture medicines and drugs.

Depicting the brain child of Professor Lee Cronin, the chair of chemistry at Glasgow University, the video shows a new 3D printing process he and his team developed to synthesize chemicals. He believes his research could one day lead to low-cost chemical printers in the home that allow patients to print out their prescriptions. Such a scenario would certainly shake up the healthcare industry as it could bring the cost of care down for patients with chronic ailments.

What makes this process possible is the new way in which Cronin decided to approach the problem. Instead of trying to combine multiple substances inside a glass petri dish, he decided to make the container the catalyst for the chemical reaction that takes place.

Called “Reactionware,” these containers are made out of a polymer gel that is extruded by the DIY 3D printer Cronin and his team assembled. Using open-source software, the researchers were able to keep the cost of the device down to around $2,000, which is pretty amazing considering what it capable of.

How it works is counter to how traditional chemists have been synthesizing compounds. Cronin’s team built a several-layered “cake” of reactive chemicals, reversing the order in which they might usually be laid down. As the cake is finished printing, the molecules from the top of the layering work their way down through the other compounds to begin the desired chemical reaction.

What’s interesting is that using this method allowed the team to create three previously unreported compounds and then control the outcome of a fourth by manipulating the chemical composition of the Reactionware that was holding it. With the ability to change the catalyst for the whole process by simply altering the chemical composition of the polymer gel, the chemical printer has incredible potential. That potential could lead to Reactionware apps, and downloadable prescriptions that are dispensed from an online pharmacy to a consumer’s 3D printer at home.

By taking out the middleman between the patient and the drugs they need, the cost for medicine could be reduced drastically. Of course, there will always need to be some sort of monitored dispensing of controlled substances, but being able to print out your blood pressure medicine is something that’s not very hard to see the benefit of.

With 3D printers becoming more common and more importantly more affordable, it’s not hard to believe Cronin when he predicts this technology becoming commonplace in as little as 5 years for companies, and 20 years in the home. If you give a person the option of cutting their monthly medicine costs drastically by doing it themselves, you better believe they are going to jump at the chance.